Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
6 November, 2014 3:50PM AEDT
"It's worse than war": Ballarat nurse fights ebola in Liberia
By Joseph Dunstan
A Ballarat aid nurse has said the damage being done to ebola-stricken communities in West Africa is worse than the wars, epidemics and natural disasters she has encountered before.
Ballarat nurse Louise Johnston says health care workers going into West African communities hit by the deadly ebola virus are struggling to win their trust.
Ms Johnston has been in the small city of Voinjiama in Liberia for a week with Medicins sans Frontieres working to educate local citizens about the deadly disease.
Many Liberians she has met believe Western aid organisations are the cause of the ebola outbreak that is killing their families and community members.
"There is a fear of the treatment centres, they're almost seen as mass extermination camps, where many people are taken to be killed, or have their organs harvested," Louise told Statewide Drive.
Educating religious leaders so they can pass on health information about the highly contagious virus has been crucial in changing behaviours.
"You really can see the impact you're having, when you walk out of the village and see the community holding up a child they were stigmatising and not feeding or caring for, and then holding it up saying 'we're not going to stigmatise this child anymore'."
Liberian villages of only 150 or 200 people have lost half their population in a matter of weeks as the deadly virus has spread, Louise said.
"What I am slowly realising here is that this ebola epidemic is having an impact worse than war, worse than anything else than we've seen. I've worked on other epidemics in the past, but I haven't really seen anything as scary as this one."
More: ABC
"It's worse than war": Ballarat nurse fights ebola in Liberia
By Joseph Dunstan
A Ballarat aid nurse has said the damage being done to ebola-stricken communities in West Africa is worse than the wars, epidemics and natural disasters she has encountered before.
Ballarat nurse Louise Johnston says health care workers going into West African communities hit by the deadly ebola virus are struggling to win their trust.
Ms Johnston has been in the small city of Voinjiama in Liberia for a week with Medicins sans Frontieres working to educate local citizens about the deadly disease.
Many Liberians she has met believe Western aid organisations are the cause of the ebola outbreak that is killing their families and community members.
"There is a fear of the treatment centres, they're almost seen as mass extermination camps, where many people are taken to be killed, or have their organs harvested," Louise told Statewide Drive.
Educating religious leaders so they can pass on health information about the highly contagious virus has been crucial in changing behaviours.
"You really can see the impact you're having, when you walk out of the village and see the community holding up a child they were stigmatising and not feeding or caring for, and then holding it up saying 'we're not going to stigmatise this child anymore'."
Liberian villages of only 150 or 200 people have lost half their population in a matter of weeks as the deadly virus has spread, Louise said.
"What I am slowly realising here is that this ebola epidemic is having an impact worse than war, worse than anything else than we've seen. I've worked on other epidemics in the past, but I haven't really seen anything as scary as this one."
More: ABC